Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are mined by a process by which transaction information distributed within a so-called cryptocurrency network is validated and stored on a ledger referred to as a blockchain. The process of validating transactions and committing them to the blockchain involves solving a series of specialized math problems. The term “mining” refers to the processing and confirmation of payments on the cryptocurrency network. What makes the validation process for Bitcoin different from traditional electronic payment networks is that there is no need for an issuing bank, an acquiring bank, merchant accounts or mandatory centralized clearing houses, such as Visa and MasterCard, holding onto funds until they process transactions at the end of each day.
Bitcoin mining is a process that utilizes a long-running, computationally intensive computer program. In addition to running on traditional computers, some participants have designed specialized Bitcoin mining hardware that can process transactions and build blocks much more quickly and efficiently than regular computers. Each Bitcoin miner is competing with all the other miners on the network to be the first one to correctly assemble the outstanding transactions into a block by solving those specialized math problems. In exchange for validating the transactions and solving these problems, Bitcoin miners are rewarded for all of the transactions they process. They receive fees attached to all of the transactions that they successfully validate and include in a block. In addition to transaction fees, miners also receive an additional award for each block they mine. This block reward is also the process by which new bitcoins are created, as specified by the Bitcoin protocol.
Because the reward for mining blocks is so high, the competition to win that reward is vigorous. At any moment, hundreds of thousands of supercomputers all around the world are competing to mine the next block and win that reward. The Bitcoin network has gotten stronger and stronger over the past several years, growing by as much as 10 percent per month. In order to have an edge in this global competition, the hardware used for Bitcoin mining has undergone generational changes, starting with using the CPU of a personal computer. The CPU can perform many different types of calculations including Bitcoin mining, but is designed to be general purpose. Early miners soon discovered that the calculations could be run faster and more efficiently using a graphics card (GPU), which is a computer chip that handles complex 3D imaging algorithms. Aside from being able to process Bitcoin's transactions faster and more efficiently, the graphics card setup in many desktop PCs means that more than one graphics card can be used per computer. But this still isn't the most power-efficient option, as both CPUs and GPUs are very efficient at completing many tasks simultaneously, but consume significant power to do so, whereas Bitcoin mining in essence just needs a processor that performs its cryptographic hash function ultra-efficiently.
This recognition led to the use of the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), which is capable of doing cryptographic hash functions with vastly less demand for power. However, due to the reprogrammable nature of the chip, it had a significantly higher cost for a chip that solved blocks at the same rate as a GPU. The benefit of using FPGAs is that the reduced power consumption means many more of the chips, once turned into mining devices, can be used alongside each other on a standard household power circuit.
As Bitcoin's adoption and value grows, the justification to produce more powerful, power-efficient and economical per-chip devices warrants the significant engineering investments in order to develop the final and current iteration of Bitcoin mining semiconductors: the Application Specific Integrated Circuit, or ASIC. ASICs are super-efficient chips whose hashing power is multiple orders of magnitude greater than the GPUs and FPGAs that came before them. Succinctly, it's a custom Bitcoin engine capable of securing the network far more effectively than before.
Several Bitcoin mining chip manufacturers have focused on optimizing for efficiency, rather than total power, since mining is a very energy-intensive process. Because of the high energy costs for running a powerful Bitcoin miner, many operators have elected to build data centers known as mining farms in locations with cheap electricity. These facilities house many mining operations, and the requirements of these facilities are unlike any other computer facility in terms of power consumption and heat removal. The art is continuing to seek ways to improve the architecture for such mining farms to improve efficiency and lower the power consumption of the process.
One of the most important criteria for efficient mining operation is the effective control of internal facilities temperatures. Operations generally realize an increase of 2.5% power consumption when high temperatures are present in the operations environment. As such, higher temperatures significantly reduce the power consumed, so managing the heat dissipation of the miners (computers) is critically important.
For large capacity mining facilities, the most common heat dissipation tool is the use of suction fans to draw out high temperature air and replace it with cooler air. Unfortunately, these suction fans consume large amount of electricity themselves. For example, a 3000 KW conventional mining facility requires forty-eight suction fans. In total, these suction fans consume 50 KW electricity, which is 1.5% of the mining site capacity.
Moreover, the single largest expense item associated with any mining facility is the cost of the miners. Reducing miners' repair frequency and miners' failure rate will result in increased return of investment. The key to extend miners' life span is dust filtration and humidity reduction. The present invention manages temperature control in the mining farm complex and also incorporates three layers of dust filtration so that the miners operate in a low humidity, minimal dust environment. The optimized mining facility design also reduces operational overhead, increases the stability of computer network and electricity supply of the mining site.